Class number: 29172

"There's more to history than presidents and generals, and there's more to culture than the literary canon," says oral historian Alessandro Portelli. In this course, we will explore oral testimony as a means to access diverse perspectives in Italian history and culture. This course is thus designed to be both 1) an introduction to the theories and methods of the study of oral cultures, as seen through its practice in Italy and 2) an alternative history of Italy in the 20th and 21st centuries. In addition to engaging with relevant critical work on the development and practice of oral history in Italy, we will explore how theories of the narration of self might impact our textual and filmic analysis. We will also examine the role of oral storytelling in queer, immigrant, and Black Italian histories. Students will develop skills conducting original interviews, analyzing performances of self, and using archival databases and digital tools. Alongside various archival resources, materials include readings by Scotellaro, de Martino, Portelli, and Passerini and documentaries by Pasolini, Fred Kuwornu, and Dagmawi Yimer and Andrea Segre. The course will be conducted in Italian.